The discussion starts in the third chapter with the transformation of everyday urban life into a mallified form in Ankara. Shopping malls annihilate the well-known cause and effect relations. For example, being continuously watched and controlled becomes one of the attractions of the malls. In addition, the socio-spatialization of everyday life which is known as the reference of social behavior is annihilated in the mall. The luxury and ordinary, aesthetical and mundane coincide in the mall resulting in a spectacular everyday life. It appears that the magic of the mall differs in accordance with the social condition of the individual outside the mall.
However, there is magic for everyone in the mall except the older generations of low income groups.
In the fourth chapter, the dynamics of the quasi-public space of the malls are examined. The chapter is shaped around the question how shopping malls can be inclusive while there is socio-technological pressure on low income groups and deterioration of the democratic rights. The freedom as the main
characteristic of the city life changes with the secure mall life. In the rationally planned shopping malls every centimeter square is identified with stimuli of consumption that is why the visitors of the mall turn into being consumer citizens. Shopping mall is like a material habitus for people with different economic and cultural capital. It seems that the inequalities outside the mall reflect to the mode of relations of consumption. I argue that the inclusive feature of shopping malls is linked with its relation with modernization and westernization, the increasing impact of consumption in the everyday life, the deteriorating conditions of urban public spaces, and providing a liberating space for women.
In the fifth chapter, the relation between consumption and discovery of identity is examined. While consumption transforms into being reward of work, it becomes the reference point in the construction of self-narrations. In the light of the self-narratives of informants, three social types of the mall are examined in this chapter, namely, social consumer, distant consumer, and window shopper. I argue that the discovery of identity in the shopping malls is not independent from the position in the socio-economic sphere. I try to how that the role of shopping mall in the discovery of identity is not limited to consumption activities which it provides. For different reasons shopping malls become central in the discovery of identity for different segments of population.
The sixth chapter is about the intersection of globalization and modernization in shopping malls of Ankara. Modernization of consumption sites through shopping malls signifies Western, hence more advanced lifestyle in Turkey. Based on mainly rationalization, modernization in the mall creates the basis of homogeneous globalization such as architecture, design, and managerial issues. On the other hand, globalization in the mall is not completely a homogeneous process. I argue that the coincidence of global and local agents in shopping malls engender a glocal experience. In this
chapter, reactions against globalization are also examined. It appears that globalization in shopping malls of Ankara is both desired and disapproved process that is simultaneously familiar and alien to the residents of Ankara.
In the seventh, conclusion, chapter, I argue that the mallified urban life creates shopping malls’ domination in the social discourse of the city. In this chapter, I also try to summarize the findings of the study as the answers of the research question.
In this chapter, following a path from general to specific, I tried to explain the historical roots and sociological significance of shopping malls. In the next chapter, I explain the design of the study involving the issues about methodology, method, and sampling.
CHAPTER 2
METHODOLOGY AND THE DESIGN OF THE STUDY
The objective of this study is to explore the social roots of the transformation of everyday urban life into a mall based one in Ankara. The rapidly increasing number of the shopping malls in Ankara has been enormously approved by the residents of the city. The shopping malls have been fast becoming the component of everyday urban life for different segments of population. This study mainly asks “what are the social roots of the shopping malls’ attraction for different income groups, age intervals, and gender in Ankara?” In line with the common view, the shopping malls are one of the building blocks of the material basis of the social life out of the shopping malls. It is clear that the ways of participating to the relations of consumption in the shopping malls are one of the determinants of the social position and accompanying socialites of the agents in the society. This study, however, investigates how the shopping malls as the material basis of the social life are socially experienced in the urban life. What attracts the different segments of population about the shopping malls, how these people from different income groups, age intervals and gender experience the social life of the mall, how the spatial shift from the urban public spaces into the quasi-public spaces of the shopping malls impacts the social life of the residents of Ankara, who are the subjects of social life of the shopping malls, and what kind of a culture comes into existence as a result of the social life of local agents in the global spaces of the shopping malls are the main questions that this study deals with.
The main motivation of this study is the mushrooming growth of the shopping malls and transformation of them into ant nests in the near past of Ankara. The earlier studies on the shopping malls mainly emphasized the patterns of social exclusion and the resulting homogeneous middle class visitor profile as the problematic sites. Although the similar patterns of social exclusion exist in the shopping malls of Ankara, the attribute of the visitor profile is heterogeneous especially in the city center shopping malls. Despite the suburban shopping malls’ visitor profile is relatively more homogeneous;
it is possible to see there the visitors from the gecekondu districts of the city.
This relatively heterogeneous visitor profile points out that the shopping malls in Turkey has a peculiar meaning. In order to explore the social life of different segments of population in the shopping malls, the biggest mall of the city, ANKAmall has been selected as the site of the study. Being built near to the city centre, ANKAmall can be reached via public transportation vehicles such as subway, buses, and dolmuşes. The variety of the visitor profile has been thought to be compatible with the objective of the study.
The unit of analysis in this study is the visitors of ANKAmall. The visitor profile of ANKAmall ranges from gecekondu dweller to suburb dweller, from woman to man, from elderly to teenagers. Their class position differs enormously; one can be a patron of a private company while the other is unemployed. Their mode of social relations is also different; while some of them have traditional social life which is spatially centered in neighborhood and socially focused on neighbor and relative visits, the others’ social life is physically centered in suburbs and socially focused on secondary relations.
Their purpose of visiting to the shopping mall varies: they may visit to the mall to shop for the satisfaction of needs, to run after their desires, to articulate with Western lifestyles via consumption activities, to be aware of social discourse of consumption, to shop around by visually consuming the mall, to find new patterns of socialization, to have a new flirt, to distinct himself or herself socio-spatially from what is seen as the lower culture of the urban public spaces, to make a family outing, to escape from the bad
weather conditions. Their shopping mall experiences tell us about the changing social, economical, cultural, and spatial fields of urban life.
Through their shopping mall experiences, we see the traces of a new urban way of life in Ankara, in which the enchanted shopping malls become rival of the urban public spaces; the visitors experience a new form of identity, that is, being consumers; and a hybrid, glocal culture flourishes.
2.1. Methodology
In order to present social explanations to the intellectual puzzle of the research question, this study applies to qualitative methodology. It is mainly grounded in a philosophical position which is broadly interpretivist in the sense it is concerned with how the social world interpreted, understood, experienced or produced (Mason, 2002: 4). Therefore, this study sees texts, cultures, and historical periods as the interrelated system of meaning which can be clarified only from a within gaze (Ringer, 2003: 2). In relation with the research question, this study rests on that the nature of the attraction of the shopping malls consist of the narratives of the social actors (visitors) about their actions, attitudes and motivations in the setting of the shopping malls.
In addition to that the knowledge of the attraction of the shopping malls can be reached through the interaction between the supra-individual setting of the shopping malls and individuals’ experiences on this setting. Bourdieu argues that every collectivity has theories about the world and their place in it: how the world is, how it ought to be (Jenkins, 1992: 68). He states that these theories are learned and constructed in, through and as a part of everyday life (ibid.). In the context of this study, the attraction of shopping malls is tried to be learned via the narratives of the everyday life practices of the visitors.
This study sees the attraction of the shopping malls in Ankara concerned with the broad substantive areas of urban life, consumption, identity, and
globalization. To find the relation of the attraction of the shopping malls with those given areas, a qualitative research was conducted. After deciding clearly the research question and selecting ANKAmall as the site of the research I started visiting the mall to know the site of the research and the actors of it. During the pilot interviews I understood that the shopping mall experience is not restricted with shopping experience. I saw that the shopping mall experience can be better understood in relation with the individual meanings of the local society’s dynamics such as Westernization, modernization, and globalization. Therefore, qualitative research was more appropriate to get the accompanying meanings of shopping mall experience.
In addition to that to piece together the knowledge of the given substantive areas to provide explanations to the research question, qualitative research was appropriate. Because, it crosscuts disciplines, fields, and subject matter (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994: 1). A complex, interconnected family of terms, concepts, and assumptions surround the term qualitative research (ibid.: 1).
This study has been designed as a bricolage to connect the individual narratives of visitors about the given areas in order to find explanations to the research question.
The method of the research was selected as field interview which involves asking questions, listening, expressing interest, and recording what was said (Neuman, 2000: 370). Conducting a field research about the shopping malls, as Slater and Miller (2007: 8) argue about consumption studies, can be seen as light or superficial compared to traditional topics of inquiry. However, even the most trivial objects and practices are the conduits through which one can see a wider sociality being mediated (ibid.). The interviews were designed as semi-structured. Although the same question set was applied in each interview, sometimes additional questions were asked in relation to the given information, and wording of questions had to change in some interviews to better clarify them.
The interviews were carried out between April 2007 and July 2007. Along three months, the interviews were carried out in different days of a week and different times of a day. I observed that some segments of population have a specific time schedule to visit the mall. For example, retired men visit to the mall following the opening of the gates to make their morning exercises while the retired women visit the mall to spend their time between lunch and dinner. Lower classes visit the mall at the weekend, in the most crowded time while the upper classes prefer visiting the mall in the calm hours, evening of weekdays. Before the field work started I was suspicious about the time period of the research. Because it was spring, I was afraid of finding the mall empty since the weather outside was alluring. However, the mall was as colorful as the nature and as crowded as the outside.
The interviews consisted of twenty-six questions but number of questions increased when it was seen necessary to ask additional questions. The questions were collected under six sub-categories of the main research question. Namely, these sub-categories were the place of the shopping mall in the everyday life, the shopping mall and the city relation, shopping mall experiences, the mall in the identity construction, the comparison of bazaars and shopping malls, and the shopping mall and globalization relation (See Appendix for the questionnaire). Some of the questions were direct information questions and generally were not followed by additional questions such as how often do you visit the mall. Some of the others, however, were more open-ended and mostly followed by additional questions such as how do you describe a shopping mall to your friend who has never seen a mall.
When my question set was completed I was thinking some of the questions would not be answered because they are not clear enough. These questions were mainly the ones about shopping mall experiences’ relation with Westernization and globalization. However, during the pilot interviews I saw that they work well and I did not re-arrange them. But I had to word them differently to make more understandable in some of the interviews.
The interviews were mainly conducted in the mall. However, it was generally hard to convince people to make an interview in the mall simply because they do not want to waste their spare time by answering my questions. Sometimes although some of the informants were interested in participating to my research, since they had not enough time or since they planned to spend their time with their friends they rejected to make an interview. In such conditions I got an appointment from the visitor to make an interview if possible in the mall, if not at home. Of course, conducting a research about the shopping malls in the mall is more appropriate. However, it is also inappropriate for two reasons. Firstly, the noise of the mall distracts both researcher and respondent. Secondly, the shopping malls are identified with everlasting movement which makes harder to stay stable for a long time at one point of the mall to make an in-depth interview. Sometimes while our conversation continues in the food court, the other visitors warned us about that it was not kind to occupy a desk without consuming anything while they were waiting to find an empty desk. It appeared that if you are not consuming you are not a consumer citizen.
The interviews lasted for between forty minutes and two and half hours. The duration of interviews was related to the respondent’s level of concern and the researcher’s ability to clarify the blurred questions. Before the research began I was suspicious about if woman respondents would accept to make interview with me. However, some of the longest interviews were made with women. Especially retired women, for whom the shopping malls were the settings of new socialization patterns, were the most willing informants. The hardest interviews in terms of gaining the trust of the respondents were the ones that I made with young girls. They were uncomfortable to sit with a stranger man.
Apart from in-depth interviews, I applied to observation, taking photo, media scanning, statistical data, and interview with the manager of the mall,
and executive of Shopping Center and Retailers Foundation as additional sources of information. I tried to keep a field diary to record my observations. I applied to my observations a lot to comprehend the dynamics of the mall on which the experiences as the subject of the individual narratives take place. In some of the chapters I used photographs of the mall in order to complement the ideas in the text. From January 2007 to June 2008 I scanned the main stream newspapers, namely Milliyet, Hürriyet, Vatan, and Referans, and some of the internet sites to learn about how the social discourse of the shopping malls is reflected and constituted by the media. In some of the chapters I applied to statistical data to support my claims about the shopping malls and the increasing role of consumption. The resulting knowledge of this study is a combination of the data collected via the given methods.
2.2. Sampling
During the field study I conducted 34 interviews with the visitors of ANKAmall. I reached forty visitors in total; however, additional six interviews could not be completed because of the schedule of time of the visitors or they found the interview longer than they expected. In the selection of the sample age, income group, and gender have been taken into account. I reached to informants through purposive, and snowball sampling.
At the beginning, I selected the informants regardless of any criteria such as income, gender, and age. After I completed half of the interviews, I applied to purposive sampling to find the appropriate informants in terms of age, gender or income group. It was especially difficult to interview with the lower income group visitors since they visit the mall as family or friendship group. In those situations I applied to snowball sampling.
I aimed to have equal distribution of interviewed men and women; yet, when the field study was completed the data consisted of nineteen men and
fifteen women. The reason of unequal gender distribution of respondents was mainly the difficulty of conducting a qualitative research in the mall.
The visitors are continuously on the move. They shuttle among stores, passages, and flats of the mall. When they have a seat, it is either for eating in the food court or for resting in the cafes. In order to make an interview I generally had to intervene them while they were shopping, eating, and resting. Conducting an in-depth interview in a setting where time was among scarce resources was the main obstacle to have an equal distribution of the gender of respondents. When women were not accompanied by men it was easier to get acceptance. However, when they were together with men I was mostly rejected.
Nine informants were coming from high income group, fourteen informants were from middle income group and eleven informants were from low income group. In the separation of the informants into income groups
Nine informants were coming from high income group, fourteen informants were from middle income group and eleven informants were from low income group. In the separation of the informants into income groups